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Back from the Brink

Author:

Suzanne Erera

Source:

2010 Annual Report

“We lost absolutely everything.”

Judy Steckler, executive director of the Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain (LTMCP), recalls August 29, 2005 well, when Hurricane Katrina brought devastation to countless people on the Gulf Coast and to the land trust.

Their office was a servants’ quarters behind an antebellum home in Biloxi that had stood since the 1700s. It survived the hurricanes of 1947 and 1969, so they were confident. But when Judy was able to return a week after the storm, nothing was left.

Files in board members’ homes were also destroyed. In fact, three sets of records in three different counties were all lost or badly damaged.

This didn’t stop LTMCP from being among the 130 organizations nationwide that have now earned land trust accreditation.

“Our board considered it important because there are just a few land trusts in Mississippi and we wanted to be one that the business community looked at as being sound, one of the best. Accreditation gives you that,” Judy says. “If those were the standards that the Land Trust Alliance thought were important, then we wanted to assure ourselves we were meeting them.”

To rebuild their files, from legal documents to baselines to board minutes, Judy called anyone who may have had pieces of the puzzle. Everyone chipped in. Preparing for accreditation, earned in 2009, was very helpful to complete the picture.

Last year, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill brought new devastation to the Gulf Coast. In its wake, however, another opportunity arose. Judy, 39 other land trusts, and Alliance Southeast Director Chuck Roe are creating a new Partnership of Gulf Coast Land Trusts to win increased funding and resources for land conservation in the region through a strong, united voice.

Judy believes the adversity of both the hurricane and the oil spill has made the “resilient” people in this largely urban community more aware of their environment and the importance of sustaining it for future generations. Every year since 2005, LTMCP has substantially increased its land protection, including from donations.

“People hung onto limbs of oak trees to survive the storm,” she remembers, “They’ll say ‘the trees saved my life because they blocked the wind.’ You can see this path where there are homes still standing…and it has to do with the environment.”

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